Linda nodded. She said:

“How did you know? That’s just how I did feel.”

Poirot said:

“Then do not repeat to yourself the imbecilities. Just make up your mind not to hate your next stepmother.”

Linda said startled:

“Do you think I’m going to have another? Oh, I see, you mean Rosamund. I don’t mind her.” She hesitated a minute. “She’s sensible.”

It was not the adjective that Poirot himself would have selected for Rosamund Darnley, but he realized that it was Linda’s idea of high praise.

III

Kenneth Marshall said:

“Rosamund, did you get some extraordinary idea into your head that I’d killed Arlena.”

Rosamund looked rather shamefaced. She said:

“I suppose I was a damned fool.”

“Of course you were.”

“Yes, but Ken, you are such an oyster. I never knew what you really felt about Arlena. I didn’t know if you accepted her as she was and were just frightfully decent about her, or whether you—well, just believed in her blindly. And I thought if it was that, and you suddenly found out that she was letting you down you might go mad with rage. I’ve heard stories about you. You’re always very quiet but you’re rather frightening sometimes.”

“So you thought I just took her by the throat and throttled the life out of her?”

“Well—yes—that’s just exactly what I did think. And your alibi seemed a bit on the light side. That’s when I suddenly decided to take a hand, and made up that silly story about seeing you typing in your room. And when I heard that you said you’d seen me look in—well, that made me quite sure you’d done it. That, and Linda’s queerness.”

Kenneth Marshall said with a sigh:

“Don’t you realize that I said I’d seen you in the mirror in order to back up your story. I—I thought you needed it corroborated.”

Rosamund stared at him.

“You don’t mean you thought that I killed your wife?”

Kenneth Marshall shifted uneasily. He mumbled:

“Dash it all, Rosamund, don’t you remember how you nearly killed that boy about that dog once? How you hung on to his throat and wouldn’t let go.”

“But that was years ago.”

“Yes, I know—”

Rosamund said sharply:

“What earthly motive do you think I had to kill Arlena?”

His glance shifted. He mumbled something again.

Rosamund cried:

“Ken, you mass of conceit! You thought I killed her out of altruism on your behalf, did you? Or—did you think I killed her because I wanted you myself?”

“Not at all,” said Kenneth Marshall indignantly. “But you know what you said that day—about Linda and everything—and—and you seemed to care what happened to me.”

Rosamund said:

“I’ve always cared about that.”